Hold your ground

Casadena · January 16

Dear Care and Feeding,

My mom has a complicated relationship with her parents, who are deeply conservative, racist, sexist Trump supporters. She chooses to maintain a relationship with them, and I have always been cordial when I see them, but I don’t really keep in touch with them myself. I’m not interested in having these people around my children—they were abusive as parents, they have gross politics that directly impact our lives, and I don’t think they deserve access to my kids when they are so proud of voting to make my kids’ lives harder and worse.

I told my mom all this after the election. She feels the same way in theory, but says her parents are old, won’t change their minds, and aren’t even really capable of understanding why they’re wrong. I know that two hours in the same room with them won’t actually damage my kids, but I still don’t want to put us through it. I also don’t want to make my mom’s life harder—she is a lifelong non-confrontational people-pleaser, and I know this is stressing her out. She’s invited us all for an event, and I told her I would come alone. I want to be sympathetic to the difficulty she has experienced managing this relationship, but I don’t really want to repeat the cycle of putting myself and my kids in uncomfortable situations for the sake of her parents’ feelings. What do you think?

banana468 · January 16

I think it's rough terrain and you need to do what's best for you and your nuclear household. If that means that you have the stamina to deal with your grandparents antics then go for it. It can also mean that if the grandparents are not going to change and they will not also be capable of going places where they need to share their close minded views then you can be clear to your mom that you are empathetic to her pickle but that doesn't mean you're going to put your kids in a position to hear hate speech.

MyNameIsNot · January 16

This whole narrative of "they're old, they can't understand..." is a load of shit. My grandmother is a 90 year old southern woman raised in a very sexist, racist, homophobic place. She is none of those things (she had to do the work to not be) because she gives a shit about other people.

If you want to go, go, but leave your kids at home. Personally, I'd skip it myself. If your mom wants to people please, she can lie and say you have a schedule conflict.

levioosa · January 16

MyNameIsNot said:

This whole narrative of "they're old, they can't understand..." is a load of shit. My grandmother is a 90 year old southern woman raised in a very sexist, racist, homophobic place. She is none of those things (she had to do the work to not be) because she gives a shit about other people.

If you want to go, go, but leave your kids at home. Personally, I'd skip it myself. If your mom wants to people please, she can lie and say you have a schedule conflict.

Yesss. Also the "don't judge, you're young, you're going to rethink alllll of these views as you age." Funny, because the older I get the more liberal I become. Fuck all of this inequality. My grandparents are in their 90s and while occasionally they say stuff that makes me go

99% of the time I am so happy with how progressive they are. But you know, that's what happens when you care about other people and not just yourself. Now, do they understand some of the things? For sure not, but they're not screaming into the void about how transgender bathroom rights are ruining America. They're either silent about it, or a vague, "huh." And they're willing to be educated about it.

banana468 · January 16

Also, at some point the kids pick up on it. We've taken the approach with the kids that we fundamentally do not agree with DH's parents on a lot of political views however we have a relationship with them.

Chiquita sees through the BS by this point.

Casadena · January 16

levioosa said:

MyNameIsNot said:

This whole narrative of "they're old, they can't understand..." is a load of shit. My grandmother is a 90 year old southern woman raised in a very sexist, racist, homophobic place. She is none of those things (she had to do the work to not be) because she gives a shit about other people.

If you want to go, go, but leave your kids at home. Personally, I'd skip it myself. If your mom wants to people please, she can lie and say you have a schedule conflict.

Yesss. Also the "don't judge, you're young, you're going to rethink alllll of these views as you age." Funny, because the older I get the more liberal I become. Fuck all of this inequality. My grandparents are in their 90s and while occasionally they say stuff that makes me go 99% of the time I am so happy with how progressive they are. But you know, that's what happens when you care about other people and not just yourself. Now, do they understand some of the things? For sure not, but they're not screaming into the void about how transgender bathroom rights are ruining America. They're either silent about it, or a vague, "huh." And they're willing to be educated about it.

THIS. Me too, exponentially. And it's 100% because I have been exposed to so much more life/world/people in the last 15 years, than the first 20ish of my life. I don't understand how people go the other way.

MyNameIsNot · January 16

levioosa said:

MyNameIsNot said:

This whole narrative of "they're old, they can't understand..." is a load of shit. My grandmother is a 90 year old southern woman raised in a very sexist, racist, homophobic place. She is none of those things (she had to do the work to not be) because she gives a shit about other people.

If you want to go, go, but leave your kids at home. Personally, I'd skip it myself. If your mom wants to people please, she can lie and say you have a schedule conflict.

Yesss. Also the "don't judge, you're young, you're going to rethink alllll of these views as you age." Funny, because the older I get the more liberal I become. Fuck all of this inequality. My grandparents are in their 90s and while occasionally they say stuff that makes me go 99% of the time I am so happy with how progressive they are. But you know, that's what happens when you care about other people and not just yourself. Now, do they understand some of the things? For sure not, but they're not screaming into the void about how transgender bathroom rights are ruining America. They're either silent about it, or a vague, "huh." And they're willing to be educated about it.

Yes!

I don't think grandma really understands my NB cousin, but she knows she loves them, so she just... doesn't act like an asshole.

ei34 · January 16

I think LWs solution works. Has a little bit of the people-pleasing from their mom, by going in the first place, but smart to leave the kids behind.

My parents have always voted blue but have definitely also become more liberal with age, so the more conservative as you age theory is definitely false. And unless there's an official cognitive decline, I find the "they're too old to really know who they're voting for/what they're saying/supporting" mindset super ageist.

levioosa · January 16

ei34 said:

I think LWs solution works. Has a little bit of the people-pleasing from their mom, by going in the first place, but smart to leave the kids behind.

My parents have always voted blue but have definitely also become more liberal with age, so the more conservative as you age theory is definitely false. And unless there's an official cognitive decline, I find the "they're too old to really know who they're voting for/what they're saying/supporting" mindset super ageist.

Totally agree. MIL has pretty severe cognitive decline and while she has always been prone to Republican ideals and borderline conspiracy theories, it's next level now. I tell H not to bother arguing or engaging because there's no changing it. She can't even remember him telling her he's not staying for dinner five minutes after she's asked. She's not going to suddenly stop getting sucked into conspiracy theories.

FIL on the other hand frustrates me. He's not a stupid man. H saaaays he used to be a lot more moderate and now he is super conservative and Trumpy. I think he's always had these views and now with the current climate he finally feels more comfortable expressing them. Sometimes H is able to be like "hey you understand how that policy you just supported directly hurts me and your other children," and FIL gives the "I had no idea" response, but most of the time he sticks to the party line. Which is zero percent surprising to me. I've tolerated him because the alternative is creating a huge rift in my marriage, but H and I already have talked about how if there were children involved, dropping them off at the parents unsupervised would be a no go. And I'm not afraid to call out absolute BS when I hear it which means FIL usually keeps his mouth shut about it when I'm around. He's also incredibly conflict avoidant so in general he's not the type of T supporter to be loud mouthed and constant about it. H is getting more frustrated with the world and has been calling it out more too, but he also calls out his mom and I've had to be like look, the woman has severe dementia, just save your breath and stress.

VarunaTT · January 16

Nope. Decisions have consequences and if you're voting/aligned with that movement, you're going to have to deal with them. I am uninterested in making bridges or educating anymore. B/c these folx know ALL of this and continue to choose self-interest, more colonialization, more sucking up to corporations, more interpersonal ugliness, and more bigotry every.single.time.

I have said it before, and I'll die with guilt about it, but I'm so glad my father wasn't around for this election, so I could escape the choice, but I would've made it.

ETA: So no, I wouldn't go, I wouldn't allow my children to go, and this relationship would have to suffer.

banana468 · January 16

ei34 said:

I think LWs solution works. Has a little bit of the people-pleasing from their mom, by going in the first place, but smart to leave the kids behind.

My parents have always voted blue but have definitely also become more liberal with age, so the more conservative as you age theory is definitely false. And unless there's an official cognitive decline, I find the "they're too old to really know who they're voting for/what they're saying/supporting" mindset super ageist.

Also this.!!

The older I get the more I find that I don't have any F*cks to give when I hear my MIL voicing her opinion. She did it on Christmas when she decided to audibly say how she just won't answer questions on medical forms asking if there are guns in the house. I point blank said, "Well, I totally disagree with you there and think there are a lot of valid reasons for this especially as a parent who knows what the number one killer of children is." DH also opted to chime in that this is a question related to mental health. Suddenly within 15 minutes MIL was tired and needed to go home. Too bad so sad.

Chiquita asked the next day WTF it was all about. So at this point when my MIL and FIL say things that I think are absurd I don't hold back. I pick and choose battles.

short+sassy · January 16

It seems perfectly fine to me for the LW's children to have a relationship with their grandmother and not their great grandparents. Sorry to sound callous, but those relationships often aren't important anyway. Those are ages where people might not be healthy enough to interact with children much and will probably die when the great grandkids are pretty young anyway.

I only had one great grandparent still alive when I was born, but I don't remember her because I was 4 when she died. I don't feel any worse for wear that I didn't have a relationship with a great grandparent.

I assume there are plenty of opportunities for the LW's kids to spend time with their grandmother.

To the mom/gma, I'd probably say something like, "They aren't going to change because they don't want to. They could also keep their hate mongering to themselves around their great grandchildren but can't manage to do that either. I'm not exposing my children to it."

banana468 · January 16

Speaking of going more conservative there is one area where I am not a fan of my state's laws and I'm curious about your thought @levioosa if CA has similar rules on MyChart access.

Chiquita is 14. I don't have access to her medical records and blood tests in MyChart unless she shares them with me. I do *get* that this is likely because at 13 there are decisions kids can make AND there are adult decisions kids can make especially regarding sexual activity and choice.

But there are a TON of kids who have AI disease, are hospitalized and have anxiety. Our rule is that I need to have access to her MyChart and should her doctors want to change treatment for UC it's still something that I need to approve. But in the interim should there be a blood test result that is concerning, it's posted to HER and emailed to HER before I can jump in and check it. And the kid has anxiety that's brought her to the floor crying in the dark in tears. I wish there was an alternative.

levioosa · January 17

banana468 said:

Speaking of going more conservative there is one area where I am not a fan of my state's laws and I'm curious about your thought @levioosa if CA has similar rules on MyChart access.

Chiquita is 14. I don't have access to her medical records and blood tests in MyChart unless she shares them with me. I do *get* that this is likely because at 13 there are decisions kids can make AND there are adult decisions kids can make especially regarding sexual activity and choice.

But there are a TON of kids who have AI disease, are hospitalized and have anxiety. Our rule is that I need to have access to her MyChart and should her doctors want to change treatment for UC it's still something that I need to approve. But in the interim should there be a blood test result that is concerning, it's posted to HER and emailed to HER before I can jump in and check it. And the kid has anxiety that's brought her to the floor crying in the dark in tears. I wish there was an alternative.

I have a serious love hate relationship with MyChart and instant access. On one hand, it's nice when I can send a message to a patient about their results directly. But I friggen loathe how patient's can instantly see their results. I get it, it's technically better patient care and transparency, but it creates so much unnecessary stress and drama. I love it for me personally, but I also know what the hell I'm looking at. But I'll have patients send me five phone messages about their labs which are basically boring because one small and non-important thing is off. Or something looks scary (like breast cysts) but is actually benign. I had a patient lose their shit on me the other day because they looked at their results and it said "Probably Benign" on the radiologist's report. I could not get them to understand that there is an algorithmic tool we use to categorize each part of the ultrasound finding and calculate a risk score. I was accused of being racist, of not caring, of trying to give bad care, all because they saw the word "probably." Another one that causes a lot of stress is my hepatitis screening. Because when you see POSTIVIE on a hepatitis test, it can look scary, but you don't realize that I'm checking for vaccine vs acquired immunity and which results exactly are positive matters. Results are nuanced, and even when reports suggest something, there's a whole clinical picture to take into account and people often have a hard time with that.

I can't speak to much to minors on MyChart because I pretty much exclusively see adults now, but I know there are restrictions on the MyChart access. I think it begins at 12 years old. From my understanding parents can be part of proxy access but it's still limited. It's definitely a challenging piece and I don't know that I agree with teens necessarily having unfettered access to their results because they're not exactly known for being calm and logical to begin with. But I also get autonomy and access for sexual health and reproductive care. Short of maybe having her email changed to yours on mychart (and I can speak 0% to the legality of that) or having her delete her Mychart and email on her phone so she doesn't get notifications, I'm not sure if there's a way around it. Maybe you could talk to her about coming to you first about results if she gets a notification so you open it together?

charlotte989875 · January 17

levioosa said:

banana468 said:

Speaking of going more conservative there is one area where I am not a fan of my state's laws and I'm curious about your thought @levioosa if CA has similar rules on MyChart access.

Chiquita is 14. I don't have access to her medical records and blood tests in MyChart unless she shares them with me. I do *get* that this is likely because at 13 there are decisions kids can make AND there are adult decisions kids can make especially regarding sexual activity and choice.

But there are a TON of kids who have AI disease, are hospitalized and have anxiety. Our rule is that I need to have access to her MyChart and should her doctors want to change treatment for UC it's still something that I need to approve. But in the interim should there be a blood test result that is concerning, it's posted to HER and emailed to HER before I can jump in and check it. And the kid has anxiety that's brought her to the floor crying in the dark in tears. I wish there was an alternative.

I have a serious love hate relationship with MyChart and instant access. On one hand, it's nice when I can send a message to a patient about their results directly. But I friggen loathe how patient's can instantly see their results. I get it, it's technically better patient care and transparency, but it creates so much unnecessary stress and drama. I love it for me personally, but I also know what the hell I'm looking at. But I'll have patients send me five phone messages about their labs which are basically boring because one small and non-important thing is off. Or something looks scary (like breast cysts) but is actually benign. I had a patient lose their shit on me the other day because they looked at their results and it said "Probably Benign" on the radiologist's report. I could not get them to understand that there is an algorithmic tool we use to categorize each part of the ultrasound finding and calculate a risk score. I was accused of being racist, of not caring, of trying to give bad care, all because they saw the word "probably." Another one that causes a lot of stress is my hepatitis screening. Because when you see POSTIVIE on a hepatitis test, it can look scary, but you don't realize that I'm checking for vaccine vs acquired immunity and which results exactly are positive matters. Results are nuanced, and even when reports suggest something, there's a whole clinical picture to take into account and people often have a hard time with that.

I can't speak to much to minors on MyChart because I pretty much exclusively see adults now, but I know there are restrictions on the MyChart access. I think it begins at 12 years old. From my understanding parents can be part of proxy access but it's still limited. It's definitely a challenging piece and I don't know that I agree with teens necessarily having unfettered access to their results because they're not exactly known for being calm and logical to begin with. But I also get autonomy and access for sexual health and reproductive care. Short of maybe having her email changed to yours on mychart (and I can speak 0% to the legality of that) or having her delete her Mychart and email on her phone so she doesn't get notifications, I'm not sure if there's a way around it. Maybe you could talk to her about coming to you first about results if she gets a notification so you open it together?

I have proxy access for Baby J (because well he’s a baby) and it’s great because I can easily share records across care providers in real time if records haven’t been sent over. It was super helpful when we were at a pulmonology appointment and they couldn’t get in to the hospital system but they could still read results.

You can have Chiquita turn off notifications from the email/app, or maybe set a rule in her email that those automatically go to a different folder so she doesn’t see them come in?

MNNEBride · January 17

I am a proxy for my husband. He had to sign a request in My Chart to allow it. He & I now get all the notifications. I can log in and have a choice to view my information or his.

In regards to test results being immediately available, there was a time when our institution came online with Epic (2018) that radiology and pathology testing had a longer delay in sending results to patients. This was intended to allow providers to contact pts regarding their results before they could be viewed in My Chart. This has changed and it sounds like it may no longer be an option for institutions to delay results.

banana468 · January 17

Right now we have it that she has to share her user access with me. But I may see if she is open to changing the email address associated w/ the account to mine and then she'll maintain the access to log on but I'll get the notifications for when there are things like blood work results posted.

levioosa · January 17

MNNEBride said:

I am a proxy for my husband. He had to sign a request in My Chart to allow it. He & I now get all the notifications. I can log in and have a choice to view my information or his.

In regards to test results being immediately available, there was a time when our institution came online with Epic (2018) that radiology and pathology testing had a longer delay in sending results to patients. This was intended to allow providers to contact pts regarding their results before they could be viewed in My Chart. This has changed and it sounds like it may no longer be an option for institutions to delay results.

It is instant. So patient gets it the same time we do (and often "before" because we are busy seeing patients and they have time to open the result right away).

short+sassy · January 17

@banana468, much less important issue but I remember my mom being really annoyed she couldn't access my life insurance policy that she had bought when I was a baby and was still paying the premiums for.

She had access to it when I was under 18. But after I turned 18 the company told her it didn't matter who paid for it, it was my policy and only I could access the information about it or make changes, lol. I think she had been trying to update my address after one of my moves. She testily told me I needed to do it since she wasn't allowed to.

I offered to give her my username and password when I set up my online account for it. I didn't care if she had access. But she didn't want it because she was annoyed at them (shrug). She told me I was old enough to make my own changes anyway. Of course I am, that's fine. Just trying to help, lol.

But she paid my premiums until I was in my mid-30s, so I was super appreciative of that. She called me up one day, "I think you're old enough now to pay for your own life insurance (lmao). It's $XXX/year. Can you afford that?" I could and it was fine. I thanked her for covering it for me, for all those years.

As an aside, that policy unexpectedly came in very handy a few years ago. It's a whole life policy, so has a cash value. I was trying to refinance the two dilapidated duplexes that I'd bought and fixed up, so now they qualified for a more typical loan instead of a construction one. But I was just shy on the financials I needed to qualify. I didn't have to cash out the policy. I wouldn't have done that anyway. However, they treated it like a savings/checking account of "funds I have available" and it pushed me over the threshold I needed.

MyNameIsNot · January 17

levioosa said:

MNNEBride said:

I am a proxy for my husband. He had to sign a request in My Chart to allow it. He & I now get all the notifications. I can log in and have a choice to view my information or his.

In regards to test results being immediately available, there was a time when our institution came online with Epic (2018) that radiology and pathology testing had a longer delay in sending results to patients. This was intended to allow providers to contact pts regarding their results before they could be viewed in My Chart. This has changed and it sounds like it may no longer be an option for institutions to delay results.

It is instant. So patient gets it the same time we do (and often "before" because we are busy seeing patients and they have time to open the result right away).

I always get these after my physical and wonder about the logic. I'm (luckily) medically boring. I never understand why I get a text, email and pop up on my phone to tell me that my ABC level is 123. I don't know what that means anyway outside of the little normal box on mychart. Why do I need so much immediate notification to know that I'm apparently not about to drop dead tomorrow?

knottie25e58da743a2a290 · January 20

You’re making the right call here. Your job is to protect your kids, and if keeping them away from toxic people is part of that, then so be it. It’s not just “a couple of hours”, it’s about the bigger picture. You don’t owe your grandparents access to your kids just because they’re family.

Offering to go alone is a smart move. It lets you respect your mom’s invite without dragging your kids into a situation you’re not okay with. If your mom’s stressed about it, just remind her this isn’t about her parents’ feelings, it’s about doing what’s best for your family

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